


The Same Coin

by smileykylie29



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Has A Rough Homelife, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Parent(s), Neville Longbottom Grows Weed in the School Greenhouse, Neville Longbottom also grieves, Neville Longbottom is a Good Friend, You Cannot Tell Me Differently, and that should be validated more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29207790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileykylie29/pseuds/smileykylie29
Summary: This, Harry could relate to. As many times as he had heard it. As many times as he’d dreamt of it. He still had so many questions about the night Lilly and James were murdered. Despite the great number of adults in his life, he couldn’t seem to find anyone to ask, either. After eleven years of having it beat into his head that he was not allowed to ask questions, Harry had learned his lesson as if it were written on the back of his hand.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	The Same Coin

**Author's Note:**

> I love Neville so much, and it seems that no one EVER pays that boy his dues. 
> 
> Neville Longbottom refuses to let Harry Potter be depressed in peace. A re-telling of the "We're going to make them proud, Neville" scene.

The Room of Hidden Things was quiet. Harry walked up and down the aisles of secret treasure and was reminded of the Penny Saver store his Aunt Petunia frequented on her long shopping days. The DA had met at 9 on Saturday, and instead of following his friends off the seventh floor and down onto the grounds to enjoy the spring weather, Harry had stayed behind. He seemed to be falling behind a lot these days.

He felt old. Ancient really. No more was the boy of fourteen whose biggest concern was a row with his best friend. Long ago were the days where Harry spent ages out on the quidditch pitch working up silly tricks with the twins. 

In his place was Atlas. A boy of fifteen, holding up the world on his underdeveloped shoulders. If he were to express this to his friends, Hermione would roll her eyes. Pet his unruly hair, and tell him under no circumstances was he expected to carry all the responsibility on his own. Ron would agree with her for the sake of not having to compose his own comforts. 

Harry had never felt so isolated. “He’d want you to feel alone. Cut off from all your friends”, Luna had told him. “That way you wouldn’t be so much of a threat.” He had fallen right into that narrative. Harry couldn’t walk through the common room without turning a few heads these days. Whispers of “touched in the head”, and “he just wants attention” followed him wherever he went. His only reprise was the DA, and even still, there were naysayers amongst the group. Members that only show up in hopes that one day they’ll catch Harry having a mental breakdown. 

It wasn’t enough that the boy had it etched into his skin. Branded on his body that no, he, in fact, must not tell lies. His peers wanted him to feel it, too. Harry had come to the realization that he would much rather sit in Umbridge’s office and scratch the words into his hand than have them pounded into him by Gryffindors he once called friends. 

No thanks, Harry thought. If Voldemort wants me alone, he’s got me. 

Then much like every decision Harry seemed to make in life, the universe threw it back to him. 

“Hullo, Harry” Nevill called from across the crowded aisles of trinkets. 

With the grace that only a seeker could have, Harry caught himself before his startle could knock any of the items over. “Oh, Hello Neville. I thought you’d already left.” 

“I had,” the boy replied, “but I didn’t see you come out so I thought I’d wait. Thought we could walk back down together.” With a shrug of his shoulders as if it were the simplest decision, Neville continued to match Harry’s pace through the aisles. 

“Well… thanks, I guess. Only I didn’t really intend to leave just yet.” Harry hoped Neville would take the hint and leave him to wallow. 

“Oh. Alright. Well, I haven’t anywhere to be really. I don’t suppose.” 

What seemed to be a constant headache for Harry these days, throbbed at Neville’s refusal to leave him alone. 

Harry liked Nevill. He really did. Neville was kind and loyal. And rather hopeless. Insults seemed to go over the boy's head, and he had an innocence about him that Harry couldn’t help but admire. Sheltered, he was, if anything a bit of a headache sometimes. Nevill was the friend that fixated on things. Could go on for hours about his favorite books. Spent almost all his free time in the school greenhouse, obsessing over small magical plants he spoke about as if they were his children. If Neville got you alone, you were subjected to a rousing conversation about the positive effects of ruincone, the mischievous growth of a mandrake, and one February evening in the fourth year after nearly drowning in the black lake, Harry was schooled on the glorious uses of gillyroot.

Today, Harry supposed, would not be much different

Only, it was. 

After a beat, Harry found a comfortable spot amongst the treasure and sat. Leaning up against a bookshelf, he looked at Nevill and with a sigh patted the spot next to him. “Well then. If you’ve nowhere to be. You’re welcome to hide with me.” He smiled up at the boy as if the negative thoughts he’d had might reach Nevill’s ears if he didn’t. 

Neville clumsily jumped at the chance. Knocking over a decapitated knight, slipping only slightly on an Egyptian rug lying on the floor. His rambling began just as clumsily. Harry zoned in and out through Neville’s stories of foraging, and the odd mentions of his grandmother. 

“… my gran says I’ll grow into it, but I’m not sure that’s really how wands work you know? I asked Hermione about it, but she couldn’t really tell me of a time she knew of that a wizard grew into his wand ‘stead of the other way round…” he continued. 

“Yeah. The wand chooses the wizard, I’ve always heard”, Harry repeats the only bit of wand lore he is aware of in hopes to seem as if he’s been listening. 

“Yeah. That’s right. And this one chose my dad. I wish I could be like him, but maybe I’m just not. Maybe his wand won’t ever work for me as it did him.” Harry jerked his head up quickly to meet the side profile of Nevill’s face. “That’s your dad’s wand?” He asked. 

After a beat and a shift of his eyes that confirmed to Harry he should already know this fact, if he would have been listening, Nevill replies. “Yeah, it’s his. He… can’t use it in now you know.” 

Harry did know. He’d known for a bit longer than Neville probably realized. After their visit to St. Mungo’s during the Christmas holiday, Hermione and Ron had discovered Neville’s secret as well. 

“Why had you never told any of us, Neville? About your dad… and mum.” Harry spoke softly as if it were still a secret. 

Neville dropped his shoulders as if he had been carrying a large weight Harry couldn’t see. He tilted his head back onto the bookcase and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t really know why,” he replied just as softly. “Gran says I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. And I’m really not, honest”, he pleaded as if he were trying to convince Harry. “I just… it’s hard. There’s so much I don’t know. How can I tell a story when I’m missing so much of it?” 

This Harry could relate to. As many times as he had heard it. As many times as he’d dreamt of it. He still had so many questions about the night Lilly and James were murdered. Despite the great number of adults in his life, he couldn’t seem to find anyone to ask, either. After eleven years of having it beat into his head that he was not allowed to ask questions, Harry had learned his lesson as if it were written on his hand. 

“Gran says I should be ashamed I haven’t told any of you, yet. She says that Harry Potter not knowing what happened to my mum and dad is an outright tragedy.” Nevill rolled his eyes and chuckled lightly. “And I really would have told you. Maybe this year I think. Now that all this is so real. Now that… now that He’s back. I think I would have told you. About how hard they fought. How much gran says it must have hurt them. How brave they were. How dad watched them, torture mum, first, because they thought it would convince him to talk. How they didn’t give the Death Eaters any information about anything... Not one thing. And maybe if they would have, they’d be alright today. But they didn't. They were brave enough to take it. They were tortured. Into insanity. They don’t even know who I am. They don’t even know me, Harry.”

Neville sniffled into the sleeve of his shirt, and once he realized Harry was not going to respond, he continued. 

“But I figured if you had never even talked to me about your mum and dad, why would I think you’d want to hear about mine? I mean… I’ve still got mum and dad here with me, in a way. How could I cry about something like that when your- when you’ve, you know?” He stumbles over his last few words and wanes off in a whisper. 

When your parents are dead.

He means, without really saying it

Harry was not good with feelings. He wasn’t keen on comfort. When Hermione cried, his answer was to always try and make her laugh. Make her forget what she’d gotten so worked up over. Avoid emotional conversations at all costs. He didn’t like to cry. There was a time, not long ago that he’d have gotten into trouble for it. Uncle Vernon’s words somehow last through the years and even now, Harry would do just about anything to keep from feeling anything. 

It must have been the dust. The room of hidden things so full and ancient, there must have been some serious allergens hidden in there as well. Because as Neville waned off into silence, Harry’s vision began to get a bit blurry around the corners.

As Neville cried, Harry sat. A touch of jealousy coursing through him for the boy who could let himself go so easily. How very similar they were in ways, but how very different they are in others. Two halves of the same coin. Neville too had grown up without parents. Grown up with questions and fears of a world he was unsure he could be accepted into. Both had felt such loneliness, to the absolute core of their person. 

Yet there were differences. 

Neville had been shamed for his lack of familiarity to his father, while Harry had only ever been praised for his likeness to James. Neville was comforted, had been allowed to breakdown as a child would concerning his loss. Harry was punished for it. For a fleeting, hysterical moment Harry consorts over the idea that if only he and Neville could combine themselves into one “boy who lived”, the wizarding world might actually stand a chance. 

Perhaps, Harry thinks, perhaps if he were to allow himself to be vulnerable, this room of hidden things and Neville Longbottom himself might just keep his secrets. 

“Do you think it’s alright,” Harry began in a soft, timid voice. “That I might miss them?”

Neville raised his tear-stained face from his knees and looked at Harry, hopeful. 

“Your mum and dad?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. I mean… I never really knew them did I? You never knew yours. Do you think it’s still ok if we miss them?” 

Harry grew silent after his moment of transparency. He had never voiced these things to anyone. Hermione would cry, he thinks, if he were to have this conversation with her. Ron would listen in his stoic way, and then offer to have his mum write to Harry about his sadness. A charity Harry had felt since the age of twelve, showing up at his best friend’s home half-starved of touch and nourishment.

“I think it’s alright, yeah” Neville replied. “I miss them all the time. Like when I see my friend's mums send them off every year on the platform. Gran’s always there, though. And you’ve got your muggles, yeah?”

This was not a conversation Harry was willing to have. The topic of the muggles that raised Harry Potter was well known to be a page-stopper. 

“Not really. But yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve got… people, too.” 

Sirius was Harry’s people. Ron’s family. Even Remus on a good week. Harry had people. But it never seemed to take away the longing.

“I just think,” Harry continued. “I think even if nothing changed. Even if everything was still so,” he paused to collect his breath, “hard. I think if I just had them, I could do it. It would be enough.” 

“Yeah I know what you mean,” Neville leaned his shoulder into Harry’s and took a ragged breath. “They could be here, and everything still be just as bad. But it’d be good somehow, too.”

Both the boys lost themselves in the what-ifs of it all. In the missing bedtime stories, the scraped knee comforts. In the off to school hugs, and the shaving lessons. How remarkable it was, to know just enough of the supposed to be’s. To feel how much they were missing. 

“And we’d still fight,” Neville said, in a suddenly determined tone. “But we would know. How it was last time. They could teach us. Instead of us having to teach ourselves. You’re a good teacher, Harry. Your mum and dad would be proud of you if they knew what we were doing. I know that.” 

Harry had been told this before. “Your father would be so proud of you,” McGonagall had told him, after introducing him to Oliver Wood. “Prongs rode again last night,” Dumbledore told him after Harry had nearly seen his godfather’s demise. In as many ways as Harry’s people could tell him, he had known how proud his mother and father would be. Yet for as many ways and as many words, it only took so few for Harry to second guess it. 

“You’re less like James than I thought,” Sirius had said in a moment of frustration. Hermione had seen Harry’s face. Had known how much the words hurt him. What seemed like childhood pranks to a young Sirius and James being compared to life and death for Harry was unfair, she had said. But it never soothed the sting. 

“Your mum and dad would be proud of you, too Neville,” Harry said in an instant. Hoping for every time the boy had been told otherwise to melt away with his words. But Nevill was shaking his head before Harry could finish. 

“I’m not… anything like you. Not anything like them.” His voice trembled with emotion, and then an exhaustive laugh. “You know I was almost a squib. Everyone makes fun of me for it. And the herbology thing. I know I’m a bit different, I think my dad was quite popular in school.”

Harry had heard the stories. Heard that Nevill was almost eleven before he even showed the first magical characteristic. Had heard his family had taken nearly drastic measures to force accidental magic to appear. What was once a funny antidote, suddenly seemed shameful that Harry had laughed at him. 

“No Neville, you can’t convince me. I watched you today. Only Ginny had you beat at shield charms. Hermione couldn’t even hold a candle.” Neville squirmed at the compliment, reminding Harry of Padfoot. Both boy and dog unable to contain themselves at words of praise. Encouraged, Harry continued. 

“You’ve done so well in our meetings Neville. If your dad could see you. I think he’d be glad to know you’d done it all with his wand. And the herbology thing. Neville who cares. We’ve all got our… things.” Harry paused, lamely. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. You’re worth twelve of any of the rest of them.” 

Feeling exhausted from the bit of emotional labor, Harry got to his feet. He reached a hand down to Neville and pulled him up with him. “We’ll make them proud, Neville. If I’m sure of one thing it’s that you and me, we’ll make them proud.” 

Neville smiled, shyly and nodded in agreement. The boys made their way out of the hidden doors and down onto the seventh-floor walkway. It was a while before either spoke, but the silent assurance was enough. The small camaraderie of grief and longing carrying them ever closer to a common goal. 

“I’ll show you one thing that won’t make them proud, though,” Neville said with a sneaking side-eye to his friend. “Come and see what I’ve been growing in the greenhouse.” 

Years later when Harry thought back on the school-aged Neville and retold the stories, he might have made mention of the DA being a turning point for the boy. Being a confidence booster. A reason for Neville to carry himself with his shoulders back. It surely had nothing to do with what Mr. Longbottom may or may not have been growing out of the school greenhouse.


End file.
